Mobile subscribers of India’s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, are in for a far simpler roaming experience when they travel within and outside the country, with the company on Monday announcing the scrapping the high charges levied on voice calls, SMS and data services when users leave their home networks, from April 1.
For international travellers, call charges have been reduced by up to 90% to as low as Rs. 3 a minute and data charges by up to 99% to Rs 3 an MB across popular roaming destinations. These will apply even if customers fail to opt for international roaming packages with lower rates, a key reason for shocking bills after international trips.
“Today we have a global network that works everywhere in the world…in the farthest of remote areas of sub-Sahara and the Himalayas, using the same handset,” said Sunil Bharti Mittal, Airtel Chairman.
“Yet, 55% of people in the developed world switch off mobile data while roaming. My estimated guess is that about 90% of travellers from the emerging markets switch off their mobile data, perhaps even voice when they travel,” Mr. Mittal said, while delivering the keynote address at the Mobile World Congress here.
International travellers’ grab the local sim cards, go to the nearest WiFi hotshot, wait to get to their hotel to look at their mails, instead of using their own numbers, he pointed out.
“What have we done to our industry? This must stop. As we leave this room, we are going to shake this system. I can promise you within my term at GSMA, roaming charges and bill shocks will be a thing of the past,” said Mr. Mittal who is also the chairman of the GSM Association (GSMA), representing over 800 global mobile operators.
In a statement issued soon after his speech, Airtel said that these roaming benefits for domestic users will kick in on April 1 and there will be no additional data charges for national roaming.
“Airtel customers roaming within India will enjoy free incoming calls/SMS and there will be no premium on outgoing call…Also, there will be no additional data charges on national roaming. Home data packs for customers will apply even while they roam across India,” the company said.
The announcement comes almost a week after Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio announced its tariff plan, under which all domestic voice calls will be free and there will be no roaming charges.
“This marks the death of national roaming and the whole country will now be like a local network for our customers, who will not have to think twice before making or receiving calls or using data while traveling outside their home base,” said Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel.
Although Airtel has some affordable international roaming packages for its customers with different validity periods of up to 30 days, there are still several cases of customers inadvertently failing to choose these packs and suffering bill shocks due to the steep roaming charges on international networks, the firm said.
Now even if consumers don’t opt for such packages, they will be protected from bill shocks through an automatic adjustment that is equal to the daily pack for that particular country. “This will allow our customers to use their devices abroad without any fear,” Airtel said.
For example, when a subscriber travelling to the USA without a pack hits the threshold of Rs. 649 (the price of the one day pack for USA), he/she will automatically move to the one day pack with free incoming calls/SMS, 100 India and local country outgoing minutes, 300 MB data and a host of other benefits. Similarly, a customer travelling to Singapore will move to the one day pack the moment his/her usage hits the Rs. 499 mark, the company explained.
“As an industry, operators across the world must collaborate to remove the cost barrier to roaming and offer customers the convenience of staying connected without the fear of exorbitant bill charges,” Mr. Mittal said.
(The correspondent is in Spain at the invitation of Samsung Electronics)
